Plymouth Cross... Race Report

Once again it’s a Monday, Blogger is hosed. And well I decided its time to get at least one race done. Waiting for the sales guy to show up to do the training seems like as good of a time as any.

So… Plymouth… I head up with a prof here at the Ivory Tower (as FnF likes to call it) who lives down the street from me… we leave at 8am… But I should back up… I wake up, make a pot of coffee, slather on some Arnica gel on the quads and lower back (still bruised and hurting from the crash on it at Brockton), and drop a few Irish Bangers on the pan… and watch the weather (local news, no cable). I get two full draught espressos (basically two quads) inside me before 8… and one sausage… I don’t think I had anything much else besides two bottles of Gatorade that morning. Oh and I’ve been adding that emergen-c to the big pre-race bottles of Gatorade, the extra B vitamins and the C ‘should’ help and aren’t technically performance enhancing but deficiencies of either are bad. Stick a small Dunkin donuts coffee in the mix and that’s pre-race food for Saturday. At least as much as I can remember.

So… hitting the car, driving up… all cool. M had just bought a new cross bike (c-dale), was anxious to try it out after DNF’n in his last two races, flats IIRC, he was at Brockton… and flatted, go figure… anyway, so we got three monster bikes on the top of his passat and roll up to the event with about 20 minutes before the start, (maybe it was 15) of the first race… at anyrate, M gets the shit together first and rolls out… I’m a couple minutes behind him for a pre-race course ride.

Lemme say, riding the course before anyone’s been on it is different, but also rather nice… no pressure, just tool around on the course… fucking lame ass dickwads riding during a race… I’m completely repentant about me being on the course at the wrong time… that said, when I did do that, I was not doing the whole thing, just riding one section at a time… anyway… So I’m tooling along and get to the first barrier, there are three guys on the left side (middle) of the barrier (serves for both directions) and one on the right, these guys are flaggin me to slow down… I’m thinking shit, please, let it be not M. Get closers… sure-nuff… its M. He decided that he wanted to bunny hop this barrier but he didn’t realize how soft the grass was on the other side and thought the barrier was shorter than it was… He knocked the wind out of himself, and at the same time bruised or slightly cracked his ribs AND a second degree separation of his shoulder. Fortunately the emergency room was right across the street and one of the promoters drove him over as I finished my warm up loop on the Vreds and 32 hole wheels. M’s crash didn’t really impact me mentally in terms of caution, and I was able to just focus. I came back from the first loop and had enough time to ride the course once more, so I switched over to the S-works Baldies on the Rolfs… and did another loop. Felt a little better. Slightly more grip in the corners and more air volume, no deep mud or sketchy stuff that the skinnier Vreds would be faster in… so I stuck with the more areo wheels.

Got a good warm up in, lined up at the start in the front row next too Curtis B (Prov Velo), with the rest of the 35+ group… I tried starting behind him but he insisted that I get a front row start, and I figured well, I’m on the outside of the turn, at the least I can block a bit for him and force others to work harder to get up to my teammate. Might have worked for him…. Not so wise for me… At the whistle, I was off, and nailing it pretty good, managed to catch some great air on the ramp up the curb after the start finish and found myself in the first turn in about 8th place… damn… and I held on pretty well through the barriers, and for the rest of the first lap, not too far behind the leaders hitting the long “run-up” after the sidewalk and jaunt around the courts. This run-up, pretty steep, I’d say a bit steeper than Lowell’s. But… I rode the fucker every lap. Every fucking lap. All 8 of them. And most of the guys around me who tried fell off half way up… it was cool, there were spectators at the run up and I got some loving from the crowd for clearing it… maybe they didn’t expect some back of the packer to clean it… I dunno. The flat run around the fields sucked the shit right out of my legs. Not my kinda course, I just don’t like the flat grassy flats… a little up is better, maybe just mentally for me, I dunno. Then the wind picked up. I was getting passed a bit, they also didn’t pull any riders so I was passing a fair handful of lapped guys. But that doesn’t help mentally. And I was generally getting passed more than passing. I did pass a few, but not many. So I finished, I did catch up to a few folks on the last lap. I finished 25th in the 35+ group, 8 minutes behind Curtis. The full 58 minutes was long too. But I left it all on the course. C-Burke won the 45+ so we, as a team took first in two of the masters groups. There were 28 finishers in the 35s and I was the last one on the lead lap and really no danger of getting lapped unless we rode another 3 or 4 laps. Which was pretty decent I thought. Curtis was overall and C-burke was 3rd overall so pretty decent even without age divisions. Placing overall my time would have put me around 16th in the 45+ outa 30 or so IIRC… I didn’t save anything for Sunday at all. I just went and went and went, but went WAY too hard at the front. I could feel that I blew my wad way early… didn’t feel good.

But the course really wasn’t that bad. A double barrier instead of the single would have been nice… But I also discovered that my remounts have been suffering from lack of practicing… I need work on that….right now my legs, groin muscles specifically are wicked sore… at least this’ll be a very light week on the bike. (and the blog prolly).

So I get done, roll around a bit, and I head over to the ER to check on M. he’s there getting ready to be discharged, but all doped up and its his right shoulder so he can’t drive, phew… at least I was there to drive him home. That’d have sucked hard if I wasn’t there… So I head back start loading up the car, go back check for results, buy a $2 hot dog (or should I say a 200 cent hot dog) suck that down and put the bike on the roof, and… the wheel in the trunk… oh shit…my spare wheels… I’d put them in the pit and damn near forgotten them…shit… that was close… I grab em (Merlyn was there which was cool – so I didn’t really need my wheels… anyway) and head over to the ER. They handn’t posted results yet and M was cool with going back while I checked on them (they were posted) and I grabbed another 20 dime hot dog to go with my double strength gatorade.

And we headed home… man was M bummed. That’s the end of cross season for him, two DNFs and a DNS and a brand new C-dale that hasn’t been raced yet. Sucky. Those of us who are lucky so far to make it through injury free, should be thankful. Although most accidents like this, can be somewhat avoidable. Personally, me no bunny hop nutting. I can get off and run fast enough… its just the getting back on that I was loosing a bike length or two…

So I get home – stuff my face with three huge servings of Penne with Bolognese sauce (that I made the night before tandem with the chili). Had to stuff my face in light of the crappy catered dinner at the school for the Thanksgiving liturgy and raffle fundraiser thing.

Problem with Lowell was that it was an early start. And well… getting all three girls going can be a challenge, that coupled with the fuel being a bit too low to make the round trip to fill with B20. So. Well, we do manage to leave at 7…. Hit the card lock pump, doh fucking pump is screwed up somehow, dispensing one gallon in 50 seconds (I timed it with the cell phone). So after 8 gallons I said screw it that’s enough fuel. And headed north. Well it was chilly and someone had the heat on higher than I’d normally put it, and the girls were dressed for outside… and the little one puked all over the place. Pulled over on 95 north to clean her up and the car seat… that minor set back had us on the way… once again I arrived with 1 objective. Find the pisser asap… I thank my genetics that my bladder has the capacity it does…

I get the shit together and then what I dunno… tool around I guess – get ready, I wanted to curtail the warm up a bit…

But then… I should have a separate entry for Lowell… and I will…

Peace (damn that’s a 1,678 word post – do I get bonus points?)

Oh and this is from Paul Weiss's page where M was doing the hop... he was going the opposite direction but you get the idea, some 6'5" dude going over and sticking the front wheel... ouch